How I love Abruzzo’s delicious Fiadoni, these delicious small baked cheesy pastries are so easy to eat on the road, the ultimate in design for gastro picnic fodder. Happily, these traditional Abruzzo Easter gems are no longer reserved for Pasqua and you can buy them all year across Abruzzo, we even found them in a butcher’s shop up in Castel del Monte once when we were going walking in Campo Imperatore, arh sweet delights! Shepherds must have loved these when they set back off on with a few packed into their rucksacks as a tasty reminder of home that they could munch on as they walked.
There are some villages across Abruzzo’s regions that add a little bacon, others that use ricotta, even a sprinkle of local saffron, I have a preference for the salty cheesy tang that pecorino brings. Whichever your favourite or local variant it is the nearest that Abruzzo gets to the torta rustica that is so popular at this time of the year.
When asking my neighbours about recipes for them they all seemed to agree that they should be a combination of young and mature pecorino cheeses, not just for taste but for consistency; there is nothing worse than cheese that is on the dry side wedged into pastry no matter how good its taste. One suggestion that particularly appealed to me was from one Signora was to use 3 types of cheese including Caciotta al peperoncino, a soft young cows’ cheese with chili for a little bit of a kick.
Abruzzese Fiadoni
Ingredients
For the Pastry
- 250 g 00 Flour
- 1 Large Egg
- 50 ml Olive Oil
- 50 ml White Wine
- 1 Large Pinch Salt
For the Filling
- 150 g Grated Pecorino
- 100 g Parmesan
- 1 Egg
- Black Pepper to taste
- Nutmeg to taste
- 1/4 Packet of Dried Yeast
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 C
For the Pastry
- Sift the flour and the pinch of baking powder into a food blender. Mix in the beaten egg and oil and wine until uniform. Remove from the food blender and knead for between 5-10 minutes until smooth.Wrap the dough in clingfilm so it doesn’t dry out whilst you leave it to stand.
For the Filling
- Blend together the grated cheeses, egg, yeast, 8 g Baking Powder, nutmeg and black pepper and leave to stand.
Creating your Fiadoni
- Roll out your pastry dough and put strips through your pasta machine until you reach the penultimate notch in the same way that you would make ravioli. Place small heaps of stuffing onto a strip and cover with another of your rolled strips that you’ve put through your pasta machine.
- Cut your little fiadoni with a glass beaker or ravioli cutter and shape into a crescent. On each fiadone at the top cut a small cross which will allow the pastry to breathe and the steam to escape as well as a little of the filling to crust up out the top. Brush each with beaten egg using a pastry brush.
- Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or until they turn a golden brown.
- If you don’t have time for the above and would rather just make a pie, use a 30mm/12” pie tin that you have greased and floured and line with your bottom layer of rolled pastry. Add the cheese filling and then give it a top pinching the sides together to seal and create decoration. Slit the middle with 2 small slits to let steam escape and brush with beaten egg. Bake for approximately 30 minutes at 180C.
Author: Sam Dunham
Sam is a very lucky midlife 'mamma' to A who is 11 and juggles her work as a self-employed freelance travel and food web content manager and copywriter and EFL teacher - she is the founder of English in the Woods. She is the co-founder of the social enterprises: The Abruzzo Blogger Community and Let's Blog Abruzzo. She is currently writing the book 'Abruzzo: Folk and Food.
These sound really fabulous and I look forward to trying them very soon!
mmm che delizia!
Let me know how they went Marla and what cheeses you used, would love to hear your Chef interpretation on the recipe!
trying these for the second time but using cheddar as its veggie and my daughter is very strick.
If you like you could add one finely grated squeezed raw potatoe to filling.firms it up too.Not Abruzzese!
oh the potato is a grand idea Rebeccca thanks for sharing